Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray Read Free Book Online

Cindy Dayton is interviewed about Bobby. Cindy is Bobby’s second wife. If she felt Bobby was a woman, the doctor asks, why did she marry him?
    “I’m not sure why I married him,” Cindy says. “I wanted a husband and he seemed like a good provider. I like him as a person. He doesn’t lie or swear.”
    Recently, Bobby tried to commit suicide, she says. For months they lived in Baltimore because Bobby was on the list for a sex change operation at Johns Hopkins. He was rejected. The doctors in Baltimore felt it would be too much of a challenge for Bobby to adapt in society as a woman. How could he pass with his bad teeth, his chain smoking, and his tattoos covering his body?
    “I say he is a woman,” Cindy says. “He thinks like a woman.… He’s beautiful as a woman. He doesn’t overdress or over-makeup. As a man, he’s sloppy, and it’s a little embarrassing.”

November 24, 1971
Aboard Northwest Orient Flight 305
    The jet is climbing. Ten thousand feet, fifteen thousand feet. In the cockpit, Scotty and copilot Bill Rataczak aren’t sure how to respond. A bomb? Is it real? Does it matter?
    In total, there are thirty-six passengers in the cabin, six crew members. As captain, Scotty is in charge. What to do?
    Scotty radios Northwest Orient flight operations in Minnesota.
    A man in the back says he has a bomb, Scotty says. He doesn’t know who the man is or what he wants. Not yet.

    “Take this down.”
    Flo Schaffner reaches into her purse and retrieves her pen. She can no longer see the man’s eyes. He’s put on sunglasses. The frames are dark. The lenses are brown.
    “I want two hundred grand by five p.m., in cash,” he says.
    She writes down the words on the envelope he gave her.
    “Put it in a knapsack,” he says.
    The pen scratches paper and the words she writes appear in a messy swirl of cursive. Anything else?
    “I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes.… When we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel.”
    Anything else?
    He wants meals for the flight crew, in case anyone gets hungry.
    “No funny stuff, or I’ll do the job.”
    She writes down those words, too.
    “No fuss. After this we’ll take a little trip.”
    “No fuss,” she writes and her mind reels and her chest heaves. No, Flo, no, don’t do this. Do NOT panic. The images of the airplane in the sky are easy to conjure. KABOOM! Smoldering debris bobbing in the water.Charred bodies. She is a corpse. Her pa is getting calls in Fordyce … from the newspapermen … from the morgue. This isn’t happening, Flo, this isn’t happening. Focus on the details. No, no. Details are worse. Parachutes? What did he want parachutes for? Is he taking a hostage? Is that hostage her? A fuel truck? Where are they going? What is this “little trip”?
    The word flashes in her mind. RAPE .
    How would she know how to pull the parachute cord? Would he pull the cord for her? They could parachute into a dark forest. He could steal her uniform and leave her there—with cougars, bears. She would have to run through the woods in bare feet and find a road. A pair of headlights would flash against her naked body, and she would have to scream out into the headlights, Stop, stop. Please stop.
    “I have to go to the cockpit,” she tells him
    He does not want her to leave. That is his rule. Sit by me .
    His rule does not make sense, she says. If he wants his demands met, she has to take the note to the captain, no?
    Kneeling in the aisle, stewardess Tina Mucklow is eavesdropping on the conversation.
    “Do you want me to take the note?” Tina says.
    “No,” he says.
    Flo is pushy.
    “I have to go to the cockpit,” Flo tells him.
    He thinks it over.
    “All right. Go ahead.”
    “Do you want me to stay here?” Tina says.
    He looks her over.
    “Yes,” he says.
    Flo steps out of the seat and into the aisle and strains to walk toward the cockpit. The jet is still climbing. The gravitational pull forces her back toward the lavatory. She